Sunday Oliseh, a former Super Eagles coach, emphasized the significance of Nigeria’s qualification for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
He asserts that if the national side misses out on the World Cup, football in the West African nation will be extinct.
“Nigeria football will be all but dead if we failed to qualify for the next World Cup,” Sunday Oliseh shared in an interview after witnessing the exciting 2022 FIFA World Cup.
He continued, “We’re already behind many countries because we didn’t qualify (for Qatar 2022) and we’re farther behind because we didn’t participate at this World Cup.
“Football is a religion in this country, but when you don’t have a solid league, you cannot have a good national team.”
The former footballer, who represented Nigeria at two World Cups, was appointed to a position on the FIFA Study Group for the 2022 World Cup.
After losing to Ghana on aggregate in the last playoff round of the African qualifiers for the event, Nigeria was unable to go to the World Cup in Qatar.
